Mr. Chairman, I rise to provide some response to the question the minister asked and to draw attention to what I see as a contradiction between the bill and the excellent decision to set up a board of inquiry. There have been a lot of problems in this sector of labour relations for a number of years. The minister says it is time to clean things up, understand what is going on, change the rules and take the appropriate corrective action.
At the same time, the bill repeats the same old traditional pattern of making special laws for ports, as has been done for a number of years. The practice has always been to decide for the parties. We would expect, and this is the focus of our amendments rather than the elimination of the notion of arbitrator, that the minister would want to change the way things are done, just as the board of inquiry should bring about effective changes in practices and ways of operating.
We must remember that they got to this point because they knew from the outset that this was the way it worked in the sector. Therefore, from the outset, they negotiated knowing that, in the end, they would reach this point and that there might be special legislation because of what has happened in the past. What we must give them is the message that this longstanding pattern no longer works and must be changed.
Therefore, adopting a special law is no solution. We are telling them to return to work and to their bargaining responsibilities, to resume negotiations with a mediator so that they are not relieved of their responsibility, but are rather confronted with it, and will have to reach an agreement as they are the interested parties. This is the meaning of the amendments we made.